


Of Misunderstandings and Mark Schemes

by GirlFromTheRing, whoviee



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Chemistry, Chemistry Teacher Jung Yoonoh | Jaehyun, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Jackson is highkey whipped for Mark Tuan, Kinda Crack, M/M, Mark is Jaeyong's son, Married Jung Jaehyun/Lee Taeyong, Set in India, like the subject, model lee taeyong
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-14
Updated: 2018-10-14
Packaged: 2019-08-02 00:15:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16294670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GirlFromTheRing/pseuds/GirlFromTheRing, https://archiveofourown.org/users/whoviee/pseuds/whoviee
Summary: (Alternatively titled: Jackson's Problems)Jaehyun suffers from post-exam stress.





	Of Misunderstandings and Mark Schemes

The clock read 5:48 AM, and Jaehyun was just on his sixth paper. The pile of fifty or so exam papers sat next to his laptop on his dining table, mocking him. 

 

“Oh, fuck off,” He snarled at the pile, scrunching his nose, “I don’t owe you anyth-”

 

“Are you talking to your  _ exam papers _ ?” Taeyong’s sleepy voice interrupted his dramatic rendition, his words accentuated with a yawn.

 

Jaehyun doesn’t respond, too busy staring at his husband in all his bed-haired glory, still looking ethereal as ever.

 

“Come back to bed, it’s too early for you to be awake,” Taeyong fusses, pulling Jaehyun up.

 

He’s too tired to protest.

 

\---

 

“I’m your chemistry teacher, Jackson. I’m not your counselor,” Jaehyun sighed, running his hand through his dirty-blond hair.

 

“Don’t do that, sir!”

 

Jaehyun paused, his hand still in his hair.

 

“That’s worse!” Jackson screeched, and the entire class turned to stare at him, momentarily distracted from their early-morning chatter.

 

“Okay…?” He slowly detached his hand from his unkempt locks, resigning to Jackson’s demands, “What happened now?”

 

“Yien doesn’t like me back. I’m sad,” Jackson leaned on the teacher’s desk, folding his arms and resting his head on them.

 

“Did you confess?”

 

Jackson shook his head slightly.

 

“And how would you know if you haven’t asked him?”

 

“I just know, Jaehyun sir,” He whined, his voice supporting a crescendo as the chatter got louder. 

 

“Trust me, you don’t know. Just ask him. At the most, you’ll be embarrassed, so what, you’ll get over it in a couple of days,” Jaehyun shrugged, hands itching to finish marking the exams. 

 

“I..” Jackson’s voice faltered, “Are you sure?”

 

“Yes, it’s from experience, Jackson. Now go, I need to mark your exams,” Jaehyun shooed the teenager away, working on the godforsaken papers.

 

\---

 

“Sorry I’m late, class!” Jaehyun burst into the room, effectively shutting everyone up, “I was marking exams, sorry.” 

He hastily sets-up the presentation, students flocking around him to ask him various questions. 

 

“No, it's okay, I can do this myself, and no, not your exams. Sorry guys.” He logs in, his background perpetually the same family photo. And, like every class, 

 

“Sir, when will you tell us about your cat?” 

 

“Story for another time, Vidhi. Right, now we going separation techniques.”

 

Vidhi looks at him, perplexed, from her place next to the teacher’s desk.

 

“Sorry, I picked that up from my son. Yes, even I'm disappointed in myself. Now go sit…” He feels around his pockets for a board marker. Of course. 

 

“Does anyone have a marker? I left mine in the staff lounge.”

 

“I'll go get it!” Around three students pipe up, and Jaehyun looks at them wearily before sending the class representative. It’s chaotic, no one in their places.

 

“Sir,” one student pretty much drawls, “When will you tell us our marks? Did I do well?” He looks at him expectantly. 

 

Jaehyun sighs, “I’m working on it, Amaan. Give me a few days.”

 

Amaan walks away, disappointed, and Jaehyun sighs yet again, pinching the bridge of his nose and closing his eyes. He's almost asleep when the door opens with a loud bang, the class representative running in with a triumphant look and three different coloured board markers in hand. 

 

“Perfect, let's get started.” 

  
  


\---

 

“I have twelve papers left from ninth, six from tenth, and I haven’t even started with twelfth. If you want to go to Donghyuck’s, you can walk, or even better, take Cactus!” Jaehyun snapped,  “God knows that cat needs to exercise,” He added under his breath, totaling up marks.

 

“He lives, like, twenty metres away. Are you sure you’re okay, dad?” Mark questions, taking a bar of chocolate from the fridge. He sits opposite his father, offering it to him, “You seem kinda stressed, is it the exams?”

 

Mark can be considerate when he wants to, it seems. Jaehyun isn’t surprised.

 

He gratefully takes the chocolate, answering Mark’s question, “You know what’s more stressful than attempting an exam? Marking it, Mark,” Jaehyun snorts. Mark cracks a smile, offering Jaehyun some more chocolate. 

 

“I see, this is the result of your students never being able to fully apply the mole concept. Duly  noted,” Mark nods his head solemnly, “Okay, I’m off to Hyuck’s, don’t tire yourself out, Dad.” 

 

“Huh? Yeah, thanks Mark. Enjoy. Be back before 8, you know the drill.” He fails to hear the door close behind Mark. “Also, take this lazy-ass shit away from my table.” 

 

“Mark?” Jaehyun turns around, looking for his son. “Mark?”

 

“He’s gone. Looks like it’s just us then.” He looks at the pile of papers on the table. “Amazing, look at me talking to my exam papers. Might as well be one of them.”

 

He sighs again, and goes back to checking. 

  
  


\---

 

When Taeyong returns home from his modelling gig, sometime past ten, he finds Jaehyun slumped over their dining table, a half-marked exam under him. He sighs, eyeing the relatively smaller, but still intimidating pile of remaining exams. Cactus is asleep on them, snuggly shedding cat-hair on such an incorrectly written chemical equation, even Taeyong could tell. Carefully, he removes Cactus from the pile, dusting the cat-hair off of it. Confusion occupies the cat’s features before he settles back down at Jaehyun’s neck, rousing the man awake.

 

“Oh. Sorry, Cactus,” His voice is scratchy as he apologies to the monochrome cat. Cactus falls asleep in seconds, and Jaehyun just sighs when he sees how content he is, curled up on the yet-to-be corrected exam. 

 

“When was the last time you ate?” Taeyong asks softly, loud enough to get his husband’s attention while not disturbing the sleeping cat.

 

“Mark gave me chocolate, at like, five or something,” He checks the time, holding his face in frustration when he realises how much of it he’s wasted.

 

“I’ll make something for dinner, what do you want?” Taeyong offers, despite his exhaustion.

 

“I know you’re tired. Just make some ramen,” Jaehyun replies, absentmindedly, as he checks a particularly illegible answer. “Shit, is Mark home?”

 

“He called. Donghyuck’s parents asked him to stay for dinner. He should be back sometime soon,” Taeyong left the water to boil and walked to the bedroom.

He returned a few minutes later, dressed in shorts and a simple T-shirt, as Jaehyun finished checking the exam. 

 

“I can sense your annoyance from here,” He says, face contorted as he adds up marks. 

 

“So you  _ do _ have time for your husband. Wow, wasn’t expecting that,” Taeyong pours in the contents of the ramen with an unnecessary amount of aggression, sarcasm palpable in his words.

 

“Shut up, you’re just salty I’m not giving you any attention.” Jaehyun looks up, expecting Taeyong to roll his eyes at him or maybe smile, but all he gets is a disappointed glare. “What’s wrong?”

 

Taeyong stares for a second longer before snapping back to reality. “Nothing,” He says. “Go back to your papers, they won’t check themselves.” He continues stirring the pot, avoiding Jaehyun’s gaze. 

 

“What’s got you so worked up?” Jaehyun rose from his chair, cringing internally at the strain in his neck. He came up behind Taeyong, wrapping his arms around his husband. “Is everything okay?”

 

Taeyong stops stirring momentarily, staring at a spot on the wall above the cooking pot. Mark killed a mosquito there, and its stain remains. It’s an ugly splotch of black, now.  _ Much like all the other stains around the house _ , he muses.

 

“Well?” Jaehyun prompts, tightening his arms around Taeyong.

 

“I know I shouldn’t be angry about this, and I’m not, I don’t think..” He trails off and sighs, collecting himself. “I’d like it if you helped around the house more, Jae. It’s tiring to come home after hours of standing and walking and posing to find a mess everywhere. I understand that you’re busy, I really do, but these past few weeks have been particularly stressful and I could use some help. Especially after Sheila’s gone. And Gudiya didn’t even come in today, so there’s no cleaning been done around the house. You know how much that bothers me.” He doesn’t turn to gouge Jaehyun’s reaction, simply pulling out two bowls and pouring ramen in them. He hands one to Jaehyun, who carefully places the bowl down and takes his hand instead. 

 

“If you wanted me to help, you could’ve just asked, there’s no harm in that.”

 

“You’re so busy, though. I don’t want to slow you down by piling more work on you.” Taeyong’s voice takes on a softer, more gentle tone, and he clears up some clutter on the dining table to accommodate their dinner.

 

“I need a balance in my work and personal life, and if it’s washing the dishes, so be it,” Jaehyun shrugs. “Besides, I feel like I should be helping out without you even telling me to,”

 

“No, I don’t think we can expect that from someone as disorganised as you, Jung Jaehyun,” Taeyong laughs, effectively breaking the tense atmosphere. The man in question smiles, and then proceeds to burn his tongue with the still-hot ramen.  

 

When Mark comes home that night, he comes to see his parents covered in soap suds, chasing each other around the kitchen. 

 

“And who’s gonna clean that?” He sighs, dreading the answer.

 

“You are!” They reply all too enthusiastically, and Mark knows he won’t be falling asleep anytime soon.

 

He’s about to protest, but then he sees Jaehyun shoving a wet sponge down Taeyong’s back and smiles as Taeyong yells in protest. It’s endearing, very domestic, something he hasn’t seen them do in weeks, which is a long time for them. So he lets it go, only mumbling some curses they don’t hear before picking up the dirty dishes. 

 

\---

 

“Fucking finally go fuck yourself I don’t care if this is wrong I am finally done.” Jackson says when he’s completed his balancing chemical equations worksheet, which was ninth grade level because most of the eleventh graders forgot how to balance equations.

 

“I wish I could relate,” Jaehyun doesn’t even bother stopping Jackson from swearing because honestly, same. He gets a few weird looks, but the students are pretty much used to him being a mood. He leaves his paper and walks over to Jackson’s desk, to examine his work. 

 

He leans over Jackson’s desk, and spots a few incorrectly balanced equations just in the first section. “Jackson, oxygen matters. You can’t ignore it. It needs to be balanced too. Here, see,”  

 

“Perfect, I’ve caught your attention. Now, we need to discuss something-”

 

“Is that why you did it wrong? Or did you genuinely not understand it?”

 

“No I understood, we need to put a 2 before the Nitrogen Oxide and then a 4 before the Oxygen on the other side, but, I have a problem.”

 

“Is it Chemistry-related?” Jackson gives him a look that says, no, definitely not. Jaehyun sighs.  

 

“What is it?”

 

“I… did something I shouldn’t’ve. Messed everything up probably. So I was walking down the corridor right, and-” 

 

“Jaehyun sir! May I interrupt your class please?” One entitled Mark Tuan practically sings from the doorway.  

 

“You already did, but go on, what do you want?” Jaehyun stands up, straightening his sleeves, and everyone one in the room is momentarily distracted. “What?” 

 

They snap out of it. “It would be my pleasure to speak with Jackson Wang, please.” 

 

“ _ Oh fuck me _ ,” Jackson curses in Chinese.

 

Mark looks at him for a moment before replying, 

 

“ _ Maybe later. _ ”

 

Jaehyun watches the exchange with interest. “Uh, yeah sure. Jackson, get out.” Jackson scrambles from his seat, knocks over his chair, apologises to his chair, and runs out. 

 

“Wait!” Jaehyun calls out, “My best friend is Chinese, just by the way.” 

 

\---

 

“I’m done,” Jaehyun whispers to a sleeping Cactus as he totals up the marks for the last exam. He bundles up the papers into organised piles and stares at them, unsure what to do now.

 

“Jaehyunnie, why the fuck haven’t you fixed the dishwasher yet? I’ve told you twelve times this week! Twelve!” 

Jaehyun smiles. He goes over to Taeyong and hugs him, “I did it, I fucking did it.”

 

“No, you didn’t! You’re washing the dishes now,” He says, hugging Jaehyun back.

 

Jaehyun just hugs him tighter.

**Author's Note:**

> This is based in India because we only know how the Indian schooling system works.. and yes, everyone is whipped for Jaehyun cause there are a grand total of like, five good-looking teachers.  
> Sheila and Gudiya are like domestic help,, (How to international) It gets realllly stressful for working people to cope without domestic help in Indian households,, like there's so much dust everywhere and it's just generally dirty and it's even worse when you have a big house... yeah idk how to explain this it's just,, a Thing
> 
> Anyway, we hope you enjoyed, thanks for reading! Comments and kudos are appreciated~


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